sunglass maintenance

I stalk Ebay like a lion on an antelope. When the odd deal comes along, you better believe I am crouched in the shady brush just out of the periphery ready to pounce. This story is no exception. This is a story about pouncing too fast in the face of Chloe sunglasses (I believe they call it leaping before you look). But it turns out okay, and I’m here to tell you how.

Wear

I have never spent over $5.00 on sunglasses. I always lose or break my sunglasses so I have been afraid to invest, but after borrowing a pair of my friend’s Ray Bans for a day, I decided that I might do better if I actually valued the sunglasses. Since I pretty love everything that is the French Design house Chloé, I started watching the market, determined not to pay anymore than $20.00 total on glasses (yes, I realize it wasn’t much more of an investment but baby steps :P). Before long I found my opportunity. A pair of glasses with all the fixings (except a missing screw) was listed at 25.00 buy-it-now price. It also offered the “Best offer” option. This allows potential buyers to submit an offer which the they commit to pay should the seller accept the offer. I whimsically submitted like 16.00 that with shipping, would put me just under $20.00. Before I had time to refresh the page, the seller accepted.

They looked so good…

There was only one hitch upon receiving them. I hadn’t bothered to figure out where the missing screw was, and it was kind of important. Not to mention, the “screw” that was missing looks more like a stylish, non-functioning gold peg.

Pretty visible if you are’t taking a picture from 5 feet away.

Care

I did the only thing I could do in this situation. I called my Mimi. Together we came up with a list of home solutions. First, I went to Joanne’s fabrics, thinking I could use the top of a stick pin to put in the empty hole and smooth down in the back.

Like looking for hay in a stack of needles.

Turns out, Joanne’s has EVERY type of needle you could ever imagine, as long as it’s silver. From there, Mimi suggested that we go to the jewelry store. They said they didn’t have anything like it, but Mimi got her bracelet fixed for free.

When we got back in the car, she sat thinking for a second before announcing, “You just sit tight,” and we were off… to her ophthalmologist. When we walked in, it was about a quarter to five. We had no appointment, and I knew no one in the building, but Mimi just waltzed up to the counter and asked if they had the stuff to fix “her granddaughter’s favorite glasses.” A tall man with stern lips and ominous eyebrows, signaled us to walk back into the hallway with a casual hand motion. The complicit receptionist, opened the door for us.

While Mimi styled sample frames, I nervously watched the eyeglass man invent a makeshift screw for my glasses. My two favorite questions were: “Where did you get these?” and “how long have you had them.” Rest assured, “on ebay” and “three days” were NOT my responses.

Midway through the interview, Mimi saw her doctor. He stopped and talked to us for 15 minutes (during which Mimi managed to slip in my whole academic biography). I don’t know what did it exactly, but the repairman gave me back the frames for free.

You’d never know the difference, unless of course you knew the difference.